This invention relates generally to systems and methods for using protocol extensions to perform a financial transaction and, more particularly, to network-based systems and methods for using protocol extensions to communicate data between computer devices when performing a financial transaction initiated by a cardholder using a transaction card with a merchant.
Financial transaction cards are widely used in the United States and elsewhere as a means to attract financial accounts to financial institutions and, in the case of credit cards, as a medium to create small loans and generate interest income for financial institutions.
The financial transaction card industry is subject to certain well-known problems. For example, in the credit card industry it is well-known that at least some persons will engage in fraudulent activities through either the theft of a credit card or a credit card number. The utilization of financial transaction cards in online transactions exacerbates the risk of fraudulent activity. Financial transaction card companies have thus implemented increased security measures to reduce the instances of such fraudulent activity. These increased security measures utilize a standardized protocol for communicating transaction information between computer devices, and require a user to provide authentication credentials (e.g., a username and/or password) in addition to their credit card number to complete a transaction with a merchant.
In addition to providing certain information to satisfy the security measures implemented by merchants, issuing banks or other parties involved in the online purchasing process, cardholders must also manually provide other information to the merchant to complete the transaction. This information can include, for example, billing and/or shipping addresses, or the name, birth date, phone number, email address or other information concerning the cardholder. This information is typically received when the cardholder manually enters the information into a computer system/input device. The process of manually entering this information can be time-consuming and tedious for the cardholder. Furthermore, the user-entered information may contain errors (e.g., typographical errors) since it is manually provided by the user.
Accordingly, a system and method is needed that utilizes known protocols for communicating information between computer devices to exchange transaction data between the computer devices in order to enhance and further automate the transaction process.